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00:01
Behind the Prop Intro
Clear prop 773 Cherokee number two following twin traffic three mile final one trolley bravo makesford in Runway two five going four mile.
00:10
Nick Alan
This is behind the prop with United Flight Systems owner and licensed pilot Bobby Doss and his co host, major airline captain and designated pilot examiner Wally Mulhern. Now let's go behind the prop.
00:25
Bobby Doss
What's up, Wally?
00:26
Wall Mulhern
Hey, Bobby, how are you?
00:27
Bobby Doss
I am fantastic as always. This show might not be for all of our normal listeners, but is a show that we're hoping all of our normal listeners will share with their family and friends if they're afraid of flying. This episode is all about aerophobia or greater known as the fear of flying. Man, I don't know how often you hear it in your commercial job, Wally, but around here I hear it all the time. Somebody comes in with somebody doing a Discovery flight or whatever else, and they ain't getting in that plane. They're scared of flying. Many people have told me I'd go fly with you, but I don't want to get hurt today. That's the craziest comment I've ever heard I ever hear. But at the end of the day, 25 million Americans suffer from aerophobia, which is about 8% of the United States.
01:20
Bobby Doss
Your, your plane has how many people in it normally?
01:23
Wall Mulhern
Well, at 350ish.
01:28
Bobby Doss
So a big handful of people, that's.
01:30
Wall Mulhern
That'S 20, 25, 30 people back there. If we, if we just go by the statistics are afraid to be on that airplane.
01:39
Bobby Doss
That's crazy and it's because I understand. But I've been afraid. I've been, not necessarily afraid of going on a trip, but I've been in the air and have been afraid. I, I was on a Southwest trip after a long 24 hours of work in a data center one time, and I swear it felt like the plane dropped 500ft on the way back from Dallas to Houston. And I was dead asleep. And you wake up and there's stuff on the top of the cabinets, you know, overhead bins and people that weren't in their seatbelt as suggested were kind of floating.
02:12
Wall Mulhern
Right.
02:13
Bobby Doss
You don't know what's happening. You don't know if it's falling apart or if we've been shot down or what, but those moments for me pass. Of course, yeah, there's always these stories in the news. Recently a story in Hawaii where a plane dropped drastically and no one, they're not talking about it yet or no one really knows the reason those moments would be scary, but the likelihood of, of something really bad happening in commercial aviation nowadays is slim to none.
02:44
Wall Mulhern
Yeah, and this is going to be Dr. Wally speaking. You know, we got Dr. Phil, we have Dr. Wally today. I'm turning into a psychologist for a second, and I'm going to put the disclaimer out there. I have no medical training, but it, this is just my opinion. I, I believe that people who have the fear of flying, and I'm not making fun of them at all because it's real. It is very real because I've talked to people on the back of the airplanes and I, I do my best to calm them, but I believe that it's maybe not as much the fear of flying, but it's the fear of giving up control. And I'd just be curious to know. I just had an endoscopy where they stick a camera down your throat and take a look.
03:32
Wall Mulhern
And everything was fine, by the way, but I just had one about 10 days ago. And of course they put you out. And I mean, you go in, they hook up an iv, which I've gotten used to. They, they don't even tell you when they're starting the medicine anymore. Next thing you know, you're awake and you're saying, when's this going to start? And they say you're all done. You feel like getting dressed and you walk out and it's over with. And, and I have a medical condition that causes me to have that done every three years. So I'm used to it and I don't have issues with it. I trust the medical people.
04:15
Wall Mulhern
I would just, I would bet, and I'm not a betting man, but I would still bet that people who have the fear of flying also have big problems with that because you are giving up control. I mean, I'm going in, I've got this hospital gown on with not much else on. And, and you know, they're going to put me out and they're going to invade my body and they're going to stick a camera down my throat and snap pictures. And, you know, I've, I just be curious for those listeners out there who are afraid of flying. Does, does that bother you as well?
04:58
Bobby Doss
You got. I gotta agree with you that it probably does. And I, I don't like flying. Even when I'm in one of our planes with a flight instructor and they're in control and I'm not. They know how to Land that plane better than I do. They probably got two, three times as many hours as I have. But there is something about it, not it not being my flow and not being my way. I'm not in control. It's not the same airspeed I would have on base or, you know, like two and a half white lights. They got two white lights. Like, none of this is adding up what's going on.
05:32
Wall Mulhern
Right.
05:32
Bobby Doss
You know, that, that is something that I don't necessarily like. A lot of people probably have a reason or a time that they've been scared or I think there's a little bit of unknown as well. Like people just don't understand what's going on. They've heard of plane crashes, they've heard of other things happening. And so they've. They begin to build this picture in their mind that planes just fall out of the sky. And there's a lot of. There is a lot of things that prevent planes from flying out of the. Falling out of the sky. Right.
06:10
Wall Mulhern
Yeah.
06:11
Bobby Doss
I think as I was in my training, I was a pretty scared flyer. I know I've mentioned it on here before, but didn't like slow flight. Didn't like stalls. Definitely did not like power on stalls. Still not super fond of a slip just because it doesn't feel natural. Like, I know you're not supposed to be that uncoordinated. So, yeah, I know I'm not gonna fall a sky, but, man, you're moving fast. You get. The ground's coming up a little quicker. I don't like slips, especially don't like a slip from the left seat to the right because now I'm further away from things I can't see as well. But I think any human is going to be a little anxious when they're doing things that don't feel natural. Right.
06:56
Wall Mulhern
Yeah. I, were discussing before this, we started the podcast and I said to Bobby, I said, I don't care who you are. I don't think there's anybody who, in their flight training, as they're driving to the airport, knowing that they're going to do stalls for the first time. I don't think there's hardly anybody that's probably not a little anxious because we're about to go take an airplane and purposely slow it down to a speed where it says, I'm not flying anymore, and we're gonna recover from it. You know, it's something that, and then I think most of us, after you do one or two, you Go, oh, that wasn't so bad. And then maybe some of us go, oh, those are actually kind of fun. Can we do another one? I think that's most of us, but you know, it's.
07:56
Wall Mulhern
You are, we are doing something the airplane is, wasn't really designed to do. But I can assure you my wife.
08:05
Bobby Doss
Would let me do it. She wouldn't let me do it once, but if we did it once, it would be the last time I ever did a power on stall with her.
08:12
Wall Mulhern
Oh yeah, sure, yeah.
08:14
Bobby Doss
And she's got a fear, I think a fear of flying is that anxiousness. And I did read this in some of my research out of the large majority of these people, they have phases of flight that they're afraid of. Right. Which some of them were taxi, which I thought was weird, but it's takeoff and landing. Right? Right. And that's when that jet again assuming commercial flight, that jets slowing down right in the descent. I've always thought it's bumpier in the descent. Why you're closer to, the air's thicker, you're probably experiencing more turbulence. The temperature changes are much greater down there, closer to the surface. But I would say takeoff would probably have been before I became a pilot. Takeoff in a bigger jet was one where it probably bothered me more than, you know, cruise and descending.
09:09
Bobby Doss
But there's again, there's times to be anxious or apprehensive. As I started learning how to fly. There's really two components that I think made me feel more confident and I, I would recommend people that are afraid of flying to go try to fly a small plane and get in control if they can muster the nerve to do that. Because it really will change the way they think about it. Especially if you have a really good flight instructor that talks you through really just how much maintenance goes on. Let's, let's pause there and talk about that for a little bit. In these small planes, Cessnas and Pipers that we use for training, we're, we're obviously looking at them before every flight. I mean there is a pre flight action that occurs both for pilot and plane.
09:57
Bobby Doss
Oil, fuel, all the controls cables, I mean all the instrumentation, fuel gauges, I mean we're, this isn't like jumping in a car. Right. I got in the car today to come here and I drove my wife's car today for other reasons, but I jumped in her car. I haven't driven her car in a long time. I didn't walk around her car. I didn't even check the tires. Right. I didn't look at, I didn't look at the four tires. Jumped in the car. I pushed the button that said start. I connected my iPhone so I could have CarPlay because it had never been connected before. And I put it in drive, which actually was hard for me to do because it's this digital new digital system. Put in drive, push the gas, and I took off. Like I wouldn't go jump in a plane.
10:44
Wall Mulhern
Yeah.
10:45
Bobby Doss
That I had no familiarity with.
10:47
Wall Mulhern
Yeah.
10:47
Bobby Doss
Without reading the poh, without doing a thorough walkthrough, probably without flying it, riding with it. Someone who had 100 hours in that exact model and type.
10:57
Wall Mulhern
Right.
10:57
Bobby Doss
I mean, flying is a different ballgame. We do a lot of preparation. If you're afraid of flying, whoever's up there in the front, they also don't want to get hurt. We joke about that quite a bit. They're human too, but they've also got so much time in that aircraft. It's crazy.
11:15
Wall Mulhern
Right.
11:16
Bobby Doss
But today it just seemed natural to jump in my wife's car and drive to work.
11:20
Wall Mulhern
Right.
11:20
Bobby Doss
But I would never do that in a plane. So in a plane, even the little ones that we're in today, we check all of the control surfaces, check the gas, check all the little crevices to make sure there's not a bird's nest or anything anywhere. Check all the tires. Not just check the tires are inflated. We actually roll the tires on a plane to make sure that they're not flat spotted and.
11:42
Wall Mulhern
Right.
11:42
Bobby Doss
I mean, we do a lot. Pretty extensive every flight. Well, after about 10 flights, maybe 20, there's a mechanic that looks at everything and that mechanic changes the oil, checks the oil. We actually cut the oil filter on every oil change we do to make sure there's no metal in that oil filter. I bet they don't do that for your jeep. No, they just pour more oil in it.
12:08
Wall Mulhern
Yep. Yeah.
12:10
Bobby Doss
They'd hopefully change the oil filter if they said they did.
12:12
Wall Mulhern
Yeah.
12:13
Bobby Doss
But you probably wouldn't know it either if they left one on there.
12:16
Wall Mulhern
Yeah, absolutely. Right.
12:18
Bobby Doss
And so there's differences, of course. One's in the air, one's on the ground, you can pull over in a car, you can't in a plane. But pretty extensive inspection and oil change at the 50 hour mark and then at the 100 hour mark. It's a very involved inspection in this world for planes that are for hire or rent, as in a flight school, the hundred hour is probably 24 man hours of effort. Meaning a mechanic spends 24 hours looking at engines, cylinders, spark plugs. They take it apart, they really dive deep in that hundred hour inspection. And it doesn't matter how many times it flies, you have to have annual as well. So you're probably getting, I don't know, most flight school planes are probably getting 6, 7, 800 hour inspections a year and annual inspection.
13:13
Wall Mulhern
Right.
13:13
Bobby Doss
And then probably 6, 7, 8, 50 hour inspections. I mean there's a lot going into it. Let's talk about your big jets. Do they ever get worked on?
13:23
Wall Mulhern
Yeah, all the time. I mean, in fact most of the flights that I fly are called ETOps, which is extended twin engine operation. And we think of it as over water operation. It doesn't necessarily have to be over water operation but you know, before every flight we have to have a sign off from maintenance. It says that this airplane has had its ETOPS pre departure inspection. So they're going through there looking, they're looking at everything. It's several mechanics that are looking at the airplane, obviously all the fluids, hydraulic fluid, oil and you know, oxygen and they're looking at tires, they're looking at brakes. It's, it's pretty extensive and we don't leave the gate until we have documentation that's been done.
14:17
Bobby Doss
And they, I'm assuming they're coming up there, signing something, giving you a slip of paper.
14:21
Wall Mulhern
Yeah, it's all electronic now. So we, we have this little thing on our iPad that's when, when it's done, it turns green and we know it's done. And then our printer in the airplane will get an actual hard copy, will get printed out.
14:37
Bobby Doss
Awesome. Yeah, well, I think while that's extensive, I bet they have a lot more. And again in my research for this show, it looks like about every two years they get really inspected. Right?
14:51
Wall Mulhern
Yeah.
14:52
Bobby Doss
Getting this much more than annual probably work done. Right. Where the engines are being inspected. There's TBO time between overhauls on these engines that we fly for trainers. I'm sure there are engine hours in the airliners world where they're also inspecting and changing out engines at some interval to make sure that they're going to continue to work and last for a long time. In the grand scheme of things, not knowing the, all the NTSB statistics still, when there is a problem, it's more often human error than anything else, right?
15:32
Wall Mulhern
Yeah, yeah. And yeah, and being a human, I want to say no, but the statistics do Back that up.
15:40
Bobby Doss
And I would assume again that the fear of flying is more a fear of mechanical problems that the plane is going to. Right. Fall out of the sky. That was my fear when I started flying. And that's where we get to the second part of my. What I began to learn when I was flight training. So the maintenance was shocking to me. Like, wow. You know, I didn't know that these things were looked at that well, that common. And then the second thing was really how smart the people were that were designing them. I guess I. I assumed someone smart designed aircraft. But these planes we train in are extremely stable, meaning the work and the design and the physics around the aircraft. They're really intended to continue to fly straight and level just about no matter what happens.
16:27
Bobby Doss
Like you have to try hard to make them not fly straight and level. That's just the reality.
16:33
Wall Mulhern
Yeah.
16:33
Bobby Doss
And you've done a 700 plus check rides the. The student that was the worst out of all. 700 of those. Still probably had a hard time getting that plane from not doing what it was supposed to do.
16:46
Wall Mulhern
Yeah.
16:46
Bobby Doss
Meaning fly right where it was supposed to go.
16:48
Wall Mulhern
Right.
16:49
Bobby Doss
So with that, the thought process as you continue to learn how to fly, there's some really key components. One, every plane has backup systems for just about everything. Yeah. So if there's a trim tab, if you lost your elevator control, meaning the cable between your elevator and the. The yoke actually broke, you can use the trim to still fly the plane without being able to pull back and forth. You can just roll the trim tab. Every instrument we've all been taught has some instrument that you can use to cross check in the cockpit. Those instruments. We still all very much depend on a compass. I don't know if we depend on it anymore, Wally. We probably don't depend on it, but we. I don't think any of us would want to really fly without one. Just in case.
17:37
Wall Mulhern
Oh yeah.
17:38
Bobby Doss
The compass is still a really big part of aviation. And. And there's something called maneuvering speed that I think was the really big one for me, Wally. That when someone really explained maneuvering speed and how it worked, I just. I felt a lot more comfortable. So correct me if I'm wrong, odpe, but maneuvering speed is a speed at which if you're in this range. Maneuvering speed is normally a bracketed range of airspeed. Call it 95 to 105. In these trainers that I can. I can move the controls violently in a direction and the plane will stall before it breaks.
18:19
Wall Mulhern
That's correct.
18:19
Bobby Doss
I can exactly have an updraft or a downdraft, and the plane will not break. It'll stall before it breaks.
18:26
Wall Mulhern
Yeah, yeah.
18:27
Bobby Doss
The plane, if into a spin, free falling to earth, won't break. It'll continue to stall instead of breaking.
18:36
Wall Mulhern
Yes.
18:36
Bobby Doss
And, and that was the big kicker for me because I guess I always thought the wing would fall off, the flaps would break off, and there are stupid things, I guess, you could do to manipulate in such a way that it wasn't in maneuvering speed and could do that. Right. Point it straight down at the ground and get to 200 knots and pull back. But that would be so abnormal that it would not even be feasible for that to get in that situation.
19:00
Wall Mulhern
Right.
19:02
Bobby Doss
So again, maneuvering speed, for those of you that are afraid of flying every aircraft, I would assume every aircraft has a maneuvering speed or a speed by which the pilot knows if operating at this speed, the plane will not break, it will stall. What's a stall? It just means the wings quit creating lift. And From a Jet 737 to a Cessna 172, there's a maneuvering speed. And we all operate in those speed ranges that, so that we are always safe and that the planes won't fall apart. And you should know if you're cruising on a big jetliner, you're in, you're probably in a maneuvering speed, and if you're In a small 172 or Piper, you're probably operating in maneuvering speed as well. And the planes, the fuselage itself is not going to have an issue.
19:53
Bobby Doss
Anything else like maneuvering speed that you would tell a young pilot or a, a young passenger that might be scared, why they shouldn't worry.
20:03
Wall Mulhern
No, you know, a lot of people, you know, they're, they're afraid of turbulence. And turbulence basically is, for the most part, in a nutshell, it's unequal heating of the Earth's surface. Okay, so the Earth, some part of.
20:22
Bobby Doss
35,000Ft from the Earth's surface. Wally wasn't.
20:24
Wall Mulhern
Well, yeah, I mean, that's basically what causes weather, is the unequal heating the Earth's surface. I mean, some of the earth is water, some of its concrete, some of its dirt, some and so forth. So, so there's unequal heating, and that basically causes weather. I have never been in, as severe turbulence is defined. You know, in my. I don't know how many 26, 28,000 hours of flight time. I've never been in severe turbulence, and I'VE probably been in moderate turbulence, what I would call moderate turbulence, maybe less than, I don't know, five to 10 times. And you know, severe turbulence, you hear people talk about it and you know, maybe the passenger may say they were in severe turbulence, but it's probably not severe. I've, I've heard it reported on the radio just a couple of times.
21:28
Wall Mulhern
May, maybe three to five times in my career. We've never gotten in or I've never gotten.
21:34
Bobby Doss
What is the definition of severe turbulence?
21:36
Wall Mulhern
Severe turbulence is when, basically when the airplane is out of control. That would be scary. Yeah, I, you know, when I do a checkride, I always take the time to get to know my applicant a little bit. And I, I, when I was a fairly new DPE and I had this gentleman and we were up at another airport and we started the ground portion and we couldn't fly because of the weather. So I came back the next week on the weekend and we flew and he did a really nice job and we landed and he finished his checklist and I stuck out my hand, shook his hand. I said, congratulations, you're a private pilot. And he broke down. This was a, I don't know, a 50 year old man. He broke down in the airplane and started crying.
22:38
Wall Mulhern
And I, you know, and I've had people do that and it's, it's kind of a cool moment actually when things are so emotional for these people. And I told him, I says, look, I'm just going to give you some time. I'm going to go inside, start your paperwork when you get ready, come on in. So he came in and he was apologizing. I was, oh, I'm sorry I did that. And I go, no, that's, that's fine. He said, let me tell you my real story. Now. The previous week I had said, well, you know, why are you doing this? And he didn't really elaborate. He just said, I just want to learn to fly.
23:16
Wall Mulhern
Well, he goes off and he told me the story about how when he was a young boy growing up in Long Island, New York, which this guy and I were about the same age and I grew up in Westchester County, New York, so just, you know, a stone's throw away from Long Island. But anyway, there was an airplane crash that happened basically in his backyard. And he describes it, and he describes how he and his friends went and checked out the airplane crash the day after it happened and how he could still, he remembers the Smell of the airplane burning, he said it was still smoldering, he said, and it scarred him for life. And he had a job in sales, which caused him to have to travel.
24:09
Wall Mulhern
And he said he almost got fired from a couple different jobs because he wouldn't travel or tried not to travel. And his bosses took it as he was being lazy, but it was a fear of flying, and it, in his career progression, he just got to the point where he had to travel. So he said, you know, the best way to conquer my fear is to look it straight in the eye. So he came out to the airport and started learning to fly, and this really helped him. And so, you know, he understands flying now. He understands what makes an airplane, you know, fly, and he understands it. So he really conquered that. I have another friend who's a drummer and a producer, a professional drummer, professional music producer up in Nashville. His name is Scott Williamson.
25:04
Wall Mulhern
And if you ever listen to the radio, you've heard his drumming. You know, he's a studio drummer. And he was the same way. He's a pilot. And one day he was telling me, he says, you know why I got into flying? He says, you know, with my job being a professional musician, we fly a lot. And he said, and I, I, it was horrible for me, he said. So I figured I'd go learn to fly. So there's more of that, you know, going on than people. People know. And, and I would, I would suggest that maybe if you have that fear of flying, maybe find a flight school and go out and explain to them that, hey, maybe you don't. Maybe your goal is not to get your pilot certificate.
25:46
Wall Mulhern
Maybe your goal is not even to solo, but maybe if you took a few lessons, hey, maybe it would help you.
25:55
Bobby Doss
Yeah. No, no question it would. I had a friend that worked with me in my Dell days. Her name was Melissa. I doubt she ever listens to the show, but Melissa was deathly afraid of flying, both commercial and said she would never, ever fly with me as a pilot. And you put that into perspective. Like, we knew each other as acquaintances, but you really don't know. Someone's skill set is strapping on a plane with them and going somewhere. But ultimately, I convinced her to go with another buddy to Galveston. I was, in essence, chauffeuring them. They were going to fly down and eat lunch and drink, and I was going to fly down and eat lunch and not drink. And they had a great day. But what was interesting was on the way down, I got her to Fly the plane.
26:42
Bobby Doss
So I think she, one felt like she was in control. She did some maneuvering. I talked about maneuvering, speed. I kind of showed her what it was like if we pulled the power, like the plane doesn't fall right out of the sky. And while it wasn't actually a lesson, it was kind of her first introduction into being in control and learning about the plane. And when were eating lunch, she was excited about flying back. She wanted to get back to the plane. Plane. And that was not what you would have heard her say before we left. It was everything she could do to keep from getting into the plane.
27:14
Wall Mulhern
Right.
27:14
Bobby Doss
So when we came back, I let her do a lot of the flying on the way back and I think it really calmed her. I think it made her experience on commercial flights much better. While she's not in control, she understands what's going on up there. She understands when they turn, something's happening out there on those wings to make them turn. She knows why the plane slows down and how it slows down because we had a little discussion about flaps and I think that would benefit anybody.
27:41
Wall Mulhern
Right.
27:41
Bobby Doss
Was afraid of flying for sure.
27:43
Wall Mulhern
Right.
27:45
Bobby Doss
Well, let's talk about some people that are famous that are a little afraid of flying. Yeah, you mentioned one before we even started recording that I think everyone knows is afraid of flying or was afraid of flying. Who's that?
27:56
Wall Mulhern
Well, we got to be talking about John Madden. And John Madden is a guy who has had three different careers and depending on your age, you know, you think of him as a different thing. I think of John Madden as a football coach, which he was probably back in the 70s, maybe the 80s, then he became a broadcaster forever. And now, you know, the video game is named after him, Madden. So the young people think of it as a video game. The middle of the range. People think of him as a broadcaster and us old guys think of him as a football coach. But he was well known for the bus.
28:37
Wall Mulhern
He had a decked out RV and a driver and if they had a game in New England and they had to drive to Boston, I think he still, I think he lived in the Bay Area of California.
28:54
Bobby Doss
Raiders. Raiders. Long time. Raiders, yes.
28:56
Wall Mulhern
Yeah. And so, you know, that's a long drive. I don't know, got to take a.
29:01
Bobby Doss
Day and a half even if you go straight.
29:03
Wall Mulhern
Well, yeah, I don't know if he had multiple drivers. I'm guessing maybe he had multiple drivers and they drove 24 hours a day, I don't know. But yeah. Several days to get to the game.
29:13
Bobby Doss
And then instead of a four hour flight.
29:14
Wall Mulhern
Right, right. What? Yeah. And then if next week's game was in San Diego, you know, that's a long, long trip, man.
29:23
Bobby Doss
I can't even imagine, I guess not being really afraid of commercial flight. That just doesn't add up.
29:31
Wall Mulhern
Yeah.
29:31
Bobby Doss
And you've watched movies where people take a shot or whatever like that. That's probably somewhat real. But the other people on my list, famous athletes, big golf guy. John Daly's the Madden of golf. Right. He has a bus decked out. It looks like a Hooters food truck, I think because he's sponsored by Hooters and everywhere he goes he's in that Hooters bus. And it's probably as luxurious as my house, but I can't imagine being in a bus five days a week driving around some.
30:02
Wall Mulhern
Yeah, yeah.
30:03
Bobby Doss
But he was very afraid of flying. He has obviously made some international flights with his golf career, but speaks of it as the most fearful thing that he, anything he could do to avoid it, he will avoid it for sure. And then the one I was shocked by my research was Wayne Gretzky. You probably think of, you think of hockey as a tough man sport. Right? Not, can't imagine too many hockey guys being afraid of flying.
30:29
Wall Mulhern
Yeah.
30:30
Bobby Doss
But it talked about Wayne Gretzky being afraid of flying and he depended on his teammate Ace Bailey to be his rock when they were about to take off and made him feel calm. And unfortunately the story has an ending and it was that Ace Bailey actually died in a plane crash on 9 11. He was in one of the planes. And for a guy who supported the Great One for all those years, ultimately was his demise was in a plane crash during 9 11. Very sad story. But lots of celebrities, the celebrity list is very long. Big names everyone would know. Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck, people that avoid flying at all costs that they can. Megan Fox, Sandra Bullock. Sandra Bullock was in a minor plane crash. Kate Winslet, Whoopi Goldberg, Jennifer Lawrence and Britney Spears is on the list.
31:22
Bobby Doss
Oddly enough, William Shatner, the captain himself is actually afraid of flying.
31:28
Wall Mulhern
Captain Kirk. That just doesn't seem right.
31:31
Bobby Doss
It doesn't seem right when you think of all the flying he's virtually done on tv. So if you are afraid of flying, the we think one way to cope with it is to learn a little bit more about what's going on. If you could ever get yourself to go to an airport and get in a plane and do a lesson or two. I think it would change drastically the way you thought of flight. There's millions of statistics on how safe flying is. And I gotta say, being around it, in and around it all day, every day. We do a lot of takeoffs and landings. We're very active. There's millions of planes in the air at any moment in time. Millions of hours flown every day around the world. It is a safe way to go, no question.
32:15
Wall Mulhern
And I will say this, you know, for the pilots out there, I. One of my last trips was to Hawaii. And one of the relief pilots brought his daughter and her boyfriend on the trip with us. And he was telling me that he got his daughter's boyfriend to take a Discovery flight. And one of the first things the CFI did with him was stalls and almost scarred this poor guy for life. He's scared to death a little airplanes now. And I just, I wish I could find that CFI and just wring his neck. Well, I was gonna say slap him. That's probably not very politically correct these days, but sometimes you just. Somebody needs their butt kicked and that CFI needs, needs a little talking to, you know your audience if, you know, be gentle with them.
33:15
Wall Mulhern
You know, I've got a, a new grandbaby at home. You know, it's what's 10 days old and we're real gentle with her. You know, treat someone that comes in off the street for a Discovery flight to you. All you CFIs out there, treat them like that, baby.
33:34
Bobby Doss
No question. And I do tell these flight insurance all the time. Even if somebody walks in and says, I want to be scared, you don't know what the long term repercussions of that could be. If someone did that to me, I wouldn't own a flight school today. If someone would have done that to me, I would have never got my pilot's license. It just would have been the nail in the coffin for me. It was very much an exploratory thing early on that actually ended up being something that I love very much. So with that, we'll wrap up and say thanks for listening to the show. Share this one with your friends that might be afraid of flying or actually have aerophobia. And as always, fly safely and stay behind the prop.
34:14
Nick Alan
Thanks for checking out the behind the Prop podcast. Be sure to click subscribe and check us out online@brave.theprop.com behind the Prop is recorded in Houston, Texas. Creator and host is Bobby Doss. Co host is Wally Mulhern. The show is for entertainment purposes only and is not meant to replace actual flight instruction. Thanks for listening. And remember, fly safe.